View on the Amstel from Amsteldijk
The river Amstel just south of Amsterdam, seen from the Amsteldijk, with the city on the horizon.
Amstel
A standpoint is recorded for this painting, but it has not been independently confirmed against a museum or scholarly source, so treat it as approximate.
View on the Amstel from Amsteldijk — at a glance
- Artist
- Jacob van Ruisdael (c. 1628–1682)
- Year
- c. 1675
- Movement
- Dutch Golden Age
- Place
- The river Amstel south of Amsterdam, the Netherlands
- Viewpoint
- The Amsteldijk dyke road, looking north to the city — river and dyke survive; skyline changed
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Now at
- Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
Overview
This is a river landscape by Jacob van Ruisdael, the leading Dutch landscape painter of the seventeenth century, made about 1675. It looks along the river Amstel from the raised road on its bank, with rowing and sailing boats on the water and the towers of Amsterdam low on the horizon. It is oil on canvas and hangs in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.
Where was View on the Amstel from Amsteldijk painted?
Museum interpretation The viewpoint is the Amsteldijk, the dyke road running south from Amsterdam along the east bank of the Amstel. Ruisdael looks north, down the river towards the city, whose silhouette — including the Oude Kerk and Westerkerk towers — sits on the skyline. The river and the dyke are still there; the low meadows have largely been built over and the skyline is modern, but the general prospect can still be recognised south of the city.
What is in the painting?
The broad river runs back from the lower right towards a distant Amsterdam. Small rowing boats and a sailing barge are on the water; cattle and figures are on the near bank; a huge sky of grey and white cloud fills the upper two-thirds of the canvas and is reflected in the river.
Look closely
Amsterdam on the horizon
The city's silhouette, with church towers, sits low and far off at the end of the river.
The working river
Rowing boats and a sailing barge move on the Amstel; it was a busy approach to the city.
The huge sky
Grey and white cloud fills two-thirds of the canvas and is mirrored in the water below.
The narrow bank
Cattle and figures stand on the thin strip of meadow along the bottom edge.
Analysis
Composition and light
A low horizon and a vast, active sky — the Dutch landscape formula at its most spacious.
Scholarship Ruisdael keeps the land to a narrow strip along the bottom and gives most of the picture to moving cloud and its reflection, with the river drawing the eye to the far city. Shafts of light fall across the water and the meadows.
History & provenance
The painting is in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, which holds a strong group of Dutch seventeenth-century landscapes.
Sources
- Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge — collection entry for Jacob van Ruisdael, ‘View on the Amstel from the Amsteldijk’
- Seymour Slive, ‘Jacob van Ruisdael: Master of Landscape’ (Royal Academy / Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2005)
Related paintings
More by Jacob van Ruisdael
The Windmill at Wijk bij Duurstede
The Jewish Cemetery
View of Haarlem with Bleaching Fields
